A recent Geek’s Guide To The Galaxy podcast was an interview with Michael Chabon, mostly about his role in the John Carter script.
Now depending on the guest and the topic Geek’s Guide To The Galaxy can be anywhere from fairly interesting to absolutely fascinating.
But like far too many podcasts it’s biggest problem is not content, it’s the volume mix.
Podcasts are not only listened to with high end earphones in soundproofed rooms, they’re listened to in the rain, in the streets, and from the tiny little iPhone speaker across the room.
Geek’s Guide To The Galaxy‘s volume is just too damn low.
Despite this, here’s the |MP3|.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Perhaps they should try the free Levelator® today!
I actually do use Levelator for the podcast. Then afterward I turn the volume down so that when I play the MP3 it’s at about the same volume as all the other audio I play on my computer. In two years and 58 episodes I’ve literally never heard a single comment that the volume is too low, and I frequently listen to the podcast on my iPod while walking around midtown Manhattan, and I never have any trouble hearing it. But it would be easy enough to make the it louder.
Yeah, it looks like +/- .25 db (?) in Audacity. I guess you don’t listen to house music. By the way, we think you should have gotten a Hugo nom.
I asked listeners on our Facebook page for feedback, and so far only 1 out of 6 thinks the volume is too low. I’ll experiment with bumping it up a bit, but it seems to be about right for most people.
I would say ” 1 out of 6 ” supports Jesse’s claim. Thats a ridiculously high percentage.
Well, 1 out of 6 also said the volume was too high, so I think the poll results are pretty inconclusive, but we consulted our audio expert and he recommended that the waveform peak at 0.5 db, which is a fair bit louder than it is currently, so I’m going to give that a try and see how it goes.